


Thor Ragnarok: A Splashy Box of Questions

by yourlibrarian



Series: Reviews [21]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Meta, Reviews
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 20:13:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12801492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: Having seen the film my biggest questions are...well, let's make a list, but we might want to start with "Who are all these people?"





	Thor Ragnarok: A Splashy Box of Questions

I need to start by saying that I already felt that the Thor films were the weakest of the Marvel lot so far. Although I was also not very engaged with the first Captain America film, I did like Winter Soldier, and Civil War was more like The Avengers featuring Captain America. Although I've heard plenty of criticism of the last 2 Avengers films, I can't imagine anyone didn't think they also had a lot of good moments.

By comparison, there are only a few places where I felt the humor in Ragnarok really landed, and only a few things I felt were really cheer worthy. From the sound of it some of the people around me enjoyed it more than I did. And I wouldn't go so far as to say it was terrible. It's just that it's disappointing and merely ok, and that's not something I look for when I'm going to see a movie in the theater.

### What Earlier Films Did Right

So if this is not the best of the Thor films, which was? A tough choice. I appreciated the Shakesperean approach of the initial Branagh film. It made sense given the text, which would have been quite aptly called space opera. After all, if you're going to tackle a story about gods let's make it both larger than life and archetypal. Although a lot of it went by quickly there were some deep themes in the film that fans later mined to great effect, especially in fleshing out Loki and Darcy, and giving Frigga a more central role.

However, while there were moments of humor, and even slapstick humor in Thor 1, the movie was always about a power struggle between brothers. By comparison, the second film was more scattered though it also had some good elements. I was pretty peeved about the fridging of Frigga who didn't get enough to do as it was. The only good thing I can say about it was that she showed herself to be devoted to her sons until the end, and that she was less a source of revenge as a temporary bonding agent between her sons, since it's hard to picture what else could have done so.

I thought the film also did well in two areas. It gave Jane a central and meaningful role, and offered Loki a believable storyline which kept him a villain yet one who had his sympathetic points. This was not so easy to do after both Thor and Avengers 1, yet what he did do in Thor 2 suggested he's someone who ends up sabotaging himself because he is too much like Thor – someone whose emotions get the better of him at the wrong times. Yet he's completely correct about always being in Thor's shadow.

I bring up the earlier films to better situate how I feel about this third one. I think it's generally agreed in fandom that Thor is the most dull of the Avengers as a character, and it's even suggested that those films are the only ones where the villain is possibly more interesting than the hero. (In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Loki's portrayal has been particularly hamstrung exactly so that he doesn't overshadow Thor, but more on that later). However, I think the solution to that is not to turn Thor into Tony Stark. Instead, it's to bring out Thor's best (and worst) qualities to make him interesting even if he's not that relatable.

### Who Are These People?

And I am not picking Tony's name out of a hat. When the movie began I could hardly believe what I was hearing. First, Thor's monologue with the skeleton was not unlike Tony's whole narration of Iron Man 3 (tellingly, with Bruce as the audience). I defy anyone to tell me that his whole dialogue with Surtur could not have been placed with only the most minor of changes in Tony's mouth in a similar situation in some other movie. Some have suggested it's more like Star Lord and given the rest of the film, it's entirely possible that that was the inspiration.

It seems strange to me that there was a Skurge without an Amora, but then women didn't fare all that well in this movie. Hela is an unexplained antagonist whose characterization is simply that she's war hungry. The only significance I can glean there is that apparently Odin was alarmed enough about that trait in Thor that he exiled him as we saw in Thor 1. But what caused Odin's change of heart (was it Frigga? Who knows)? And how is it that even in the Odin sleep he was able to keep her at bay? Why is her power tied to Asgard?

Speaking of the Odin sleep, why is there no explanation as to how Loki was able to overpower Odin in the first place and keep him silent and away from Asgard? Or to transport him to Midgard without anyone knowing? Was Odin simply comatose that whole time? Who knows? We only get to see him in the movie so he can warn them about Hela and then die.

But, returning to the women, we discover Valkyrie was devastated by the loss of her shield sisters (and perhaps lover). Yet Hela was in fact defeated though we don't know how. So why did Valkyrie leave instead of staying behind to rebuild the regiment? All we know is that she drinks a lot, and maybe has PTSD. And clearly the film is trying to suggest some attraction between her and Thor (since Jane's been written off in an aside). But it's not explored enough that she couldn't be written out just as easily as all the other women in Thor's life.

Other than those two characters, we have a lot of ineffective women serving as decoration or victims, even though presumably everyone in Asgard is a warrior by culture. The person who fares best is Topaz, the Grandmaster's... assistant? Security chief? She has some of the only genuinely amusing interactions due to her disapproval of virtually everything going on. Yet why this is and why she stays with the Grandmaster –- well, who knows?

I also didn't care for the director's decision to shoot the scene up in between Valkyrie's legs, ostensibly because Thor is being carted below her. The scene where he himself is shirtless later seems less exploitative even if he's half-dressed, and at least it doesn't seem completely out of place given that his injuries are being tended to (again, by a gaggle of nameless, decorative women). In that scene though the director's gone on record as making that decision purely for the eye candy factor. There's also a later shot where the director has Loki and Valkyrie walking over the camera. It's an interesting choice that might not have stood out to me so much had we not had the earlier one in her ship.

As to how the Grandmaster came to rule Sakaar, again who knows? However, I won't press on this too heavily as Marvel's often had underdeveloped villains. Even so, this film has some of the worst cases because there are so many of them –- Surtur, Hela, the Grandmaster and Skurge. Apparently Skurge's only reason to exist is that Hela needed someone to talk at, and either the director didn't want to work with any of the Warriors Three or didn't think it would be believable that they would hold their tongue for so long. (After all, we already had Heimdall working undercover). So the best we can say about Skurge is that he is a less principled Fandral.

On the plus side I'll say that Goldblum's performance had a lightness that kept his part from being a total cliche. I think that he'd have fit in quite well with a Guardians movie, and in some ways is not that different from The Collector. I mean, I'd have quite liked to see him and Topaz with a more extensive role in a different movie. They made a potentially intriguing pair, though apparently Topaz will not be back. And let's not forget Korg and his sidekick who are Groot and Rocket in reverse. So when Waititi was asked if he wanted to do a film about any of the other Marvel characters and he said no because he was only interested in the ones in this movie, well, that's only half true. Instead he just made most of the characters like someone else in the verse because he clearly didn't want to work with the Thor characters he was offered.

What do I mean? Well the Warriors Three get written off in moments (Hogun gets an extra scene). Where is Sif? There's even a character stand-in for her in Loki's play, yet Sif herself, what happened? Odin gets an important departure scene but is also in the film largely in absentia through others talking about him (at the very least we shouldn't expect him back). 

So when we're talking about "these characters" we're talking about the Hulk coming into Thor's story, plus Loki. And frankly, I have my doubts about how interested the director was in Loki either, but I'm pretty sure not having him be in the story was not optional. The very fact that so many of his scenes were released early suggests to me that Marvel's well aware that at least as many people are going to the movie to see him as Hulk or Thor. (As an aside I think I already saw about 3/4 of Loki's appearance in the film in gifs and commercials before it debuted in the U.S.. What is with studios publicizing virtually the whole movie before anyone sees it?)

This film's Loki doesn't seem to much care about ruling Asgard anymore, even though he's always wanted the role to either prove himself superior to Thor or simply to satisfy his desire for adulation. This movie could have explored whether or not that's been sated or if Asgard itself was really that important or another territory would have sufficed. We don't know because there's no development of Loki's character in the movie –- he just seems to be a bunch of contradictory actions depending on what's needed at the moment. (Do we need to show how good a fighter Valkyrie is? Have her defeat Loki!) For the finale Loki decides to join in the fight because...Thor's last words to him were so convincing? It mostly seems like he does because it's convenient and because he must carry out the letter of the prophecy where it's Loki that initiates Ragnarok. That would have also carried a lot more weight in the story had we known it up front, with the question hanging throughout the film of which side Loki's going to fall on. So when in the end, he brings Surtur back to life for the purpose of defeating Hela it could have been a nice twist. (I'm also assuming he knicks the Tesseract and perhaps a few other useful items while he's in the vault which will likely be significant for the next films).

Also, while Loki did accompany the rest of Asgard off the planet (what other choice did he have at that point?) I found it a little too pat that he seems to be fine with Thor sitting on the makeshift throne. Not that it seems that will last too long. And while resettling Asgardians in Norway is a convenient choice for Thor (and the coming Infinity War), one assumes they might have fit in better in one of the other 7 realms. (Does Thor spare a passing thought for what's happened to the Warriors 3 and Sif? Apparently not.) 

Bruce does not benefit from any real development either even though he's the other headliner in the film. I was not thrilled to hear the possibility that this is the last we'll see of him. I quite liked his complexity (and especially his science bromance with Tony). Here he's mostly a jittery mouse, though I can handwave at least some of that as his being seriously disoriented to realize how much has happened and how foreign a situation he's ended up in. Unlike some I do not find Hulk endearing or generally amusing and was glad when he disappeared for a while. But despite this grave risk to his future, Bruce ends up coming along (not that he has good choices) and at the critical moment, transforming in order to battle Fenrir. Does any of this tell us something new about Bruce? Not that I could tell.

### Are We Getting Answers to Anything?

And all the problems with the characters are just part of the overarching problem which is that there was no depth to anything in the film, even when there should have been. What's more the tone was very inconsistent because it was two different movies in one, with the two parts not gelling well together at all.

Consider, for example the major things that should have been explained or were expected to take place in this film: Thor discovering (again) that Loki was not dead; Loki's coup of the throne; Odin's time away from Asgard; the state of Asgard under Loki's rule; the looming threat of Thanos and the issue of the infinity stones (at least some of whose locations Thor must have been aware of); and lastly, the destruction of Asgard. These are serious issues with a lot of potential drama at the heart of them -- yet almost all of it is handwaved or addressed through action scenes which diminished any real impact.

I should first say that anything I know about the comics, I've gathered from fanfic, so I'm working mainly from the MCU storylines. And I'm going to assume the initial story devised for this film revolved around Hela, Surtur, Skurge and the destruction of Asgard. I'm not clear as to why the films would tackle Ragnarok in the first place given that the end game is a showdown with Thanos for the fate of the universe, but since it was I assumed that the movie would either end with Thanos' appearance with Asgard's destruction being implied (and maybe even seen in a post-credit scene) or he would actually appear as he did in Guardians 1, and would be attacking Asgard to ransack its vault. Since we can't destroy Earth, destroying Asgard would raise the stakes as to what Thanos is capable of. And given his devotion to Lady Death, I thought it was possible that Hela would be its embodiment for the movie verse, and that she would be his agent in this film.

Instead, I don't see the connection between Asgard's destruction and Thanos at all. This seems like a film that's completely unconnected to that storyline even though when we last saw Thor at the end of Ultron, he planned to investigate the meaning of the infinity stones vision he had seen. Yet other than some throwaway lines at the start they never get mentioned. The closest we come is Hela tossing aside the infinity gauntlet. If it was critical that Hulk appear in this film, well, it's not like there was any clear explanation at all about how Hulk's quinjet ended up across the galaxy. We could have had him in Asgard all along -- they're a warrior culture and would have been happy to run games with Hulk smashing all comers. Might have been interesting to see what sort of relationship he and Loki would have had had Loki been playing a grandmaster role to him.

But the story we get instead is that Hela is Thor and Loki's (presumably half-) sister with a history that they were both ignorant about. How is that even possible? And what about her mother? Apparently no one cares. Or maybe, being a god, Odin split in two like an amoeba for some asexual reproduction since Hela's origin is apparently considered to be completely unimportant to how she turned out or why she's so powerful.

But seriously, how could no one currently in Asgard know what had occurred with Hela? Valkyrie had obviously been there yet presumably remained young because of the way time moved in Sakaar. (And how weird is it that the character is named after her troop of warriors -– it's like calling her Navy Seal). But Thor knew about the Valkyries! So if he knew about them, how is it that he didn't know how they were wiped out? Isn't Asgard a land where everyone loves to tell tales of battle and victory? Yes, the Valkyries were not victorious but Hela was in fact contained so you'd think their sacrifice would be long remembered in song.

Plus, this backstory makes even less sense when we consider earlier developments. Since Thor knew about Valkyries why was Sif's elevation to warrior during his lifetime considered something unusual? And those nonsensical lines he's given, where he says "it's time" that women were also considered warriors, makes NO SENSE given that this all happened before he was born. This badly thought out backstory is just one example of the many, many problems with the plotting and the erosion of what world building the Thor films had, but it also contributes to Valkyrie looking more like a Smurfette than a carefully thought out character with more than two lines of backstory.

And just as an aside, it isn't just the plotting that was sloppy. I was startled to hear the sound of Loki's clone moving around in the scene where he talks to Thor in the holding cell. If he's insubstantial enough to have rocks go through him, how can his feet be making noise as he moves around? Was the sound crew half-assing this as much as the director?

Regarding the whole section of the film set in Sakaar, I'm reminded of the fight Joss Whedon had with Marvel about the whole "farmhouse" section of Ultron. With Ragnarok, it's like the director wanted to make the whole movie about the farmhouse even though Marvel needed other things to happen in it. The difference being that the farmhouse was supposed to be an interlude where we got some character exploration and in Thor it's just supposed to be goofy. Consider these factors: in the farmhouse section, Tony speaks to Cap, Fury speaks to Tony, Clint speaks to his wife (setting up the later "just a guy with a bow" conversation he'll have with Wanda), and of course the infamous Banner and Romanov scene. Plus we then have Fury getting the team back on their feet and we see them putting their heads together to determine their next steps. So we establish both where each character is emotionally plus there is some important exposition that happens. Notice which character is missing from all this –- because he's off pursuing visions about Asgard's future. There were even new scenes written specifically so that Thor could bring up the infinity stones and set up his actions in the next movie. Yet it never happens -- why did Marvel change their plans?

That whole vision thing gets written off in a few lines at the start of Ragnarok as Thor having been traipsing around the realms trying to nail down where the danger may be coming from. I don't have a big problem with that: I don't think we needed any more Surtur in the film than we got. But consider how much more interesting it would have been had Thor put his "team" together bit by bit through the film as he pursued the meaning of the vision, starting off with Loki (or Bruce) and then picking up Valkyrie, so that we see more meaningful interactions with them for a longer period of time instead of a lot of other discussion regarding the fights, the coliseum scene, trying to figure out an escape from the planet, etc. 

Because let's face it, very little of any longterm consequence happens on Sakaar. We know Hulk doesn't want to leave because he gets to live a warrior's exile on Sakaar. Valkyrie doesn't want to leave due to, well, bad memories on Asgard? We have two critical exchanges between Thor and Loki in the elevator and in the hangar as that section ends (and Loki seemed so grafted onto the plot that I seriously expected him to stay and become the new ruler of Sakaar.) 

Didn't Thor return directly to Asgard at the end of Ultron? What happened? Presumably he didn't yet suspect Loki of masquerading as Odin or he wouldn't have left again. Perhaps he eventually did and that's why Heimdall went into hiding. Also, as Loki himself stated, perhaps Asgard was doing well enough that he might as well leave Loki in charge while he was off on his interstellar quest. But all of that makes very little sense as it's presented in the film.

That leads me to the second extensive digression that derails the plot, the bit on earth with Doctor Strange. I seriously don't understand what the purpose of this was. That whole bit could have been cut with Loki leading Thor directly to Norway and Odin. There was nothing new established about Strange that we didn't already know except that his powers have improved. And let me add that I was seriously annoyed at how it's suggested he's more powerful than Loki. Really? The millennium–living (and training) god is bested by a human with a year's experience and incomplete training? And where, after all this time, is Loki's ability to teleport? Strange obviously has it, but so should Loki, which would obviously change a lot about what could happen in this film (and could explain certain incidents in Thor 1). In fact, Loki doesn't seem to be competent about anything in this film. The exception seems to be ingratiating himself with the Grandmaster which _we don't actually see._

But the only reason I could picture for bringing Strange into this film would have been for Thor to connect the dots about the infinity stones by realizing Strange had one. After all, to date Thor and Loki (and Gamora) are the only ones who have any notion of what Thanos is up to. Yet if there was any discussion or revelation about the time stone, it wasn't addressed in this digression.

The meeting with Odin was relevant largely in confirming Hela's origin, establishing that he does care about both his sons, possibly setting up the location for Asgard's refugees, and showing his death. I'm not sure Loki had any lines at all with him, though of the two sons he still has the most unresolved issues with his father. Thor, too, could certainly have used more back and forth with Odin instead of the one-sided conversation.

We could also easily have had this section at the beginning of the film. Both could still be knocked out of the bifrost with Thor and Loki joining together to find a way to defeat Hela. We could have also skipped Loki's play which was clearly there for the purpose of catching people up on events in the previous movie, but which could have been done in a less slapstick way. In fact it would have been pretty interesting had Thor returned to discover that Loki had spread his origin story among the people via "Odin" and that the people were not unhappy with his rule. This would have definitely been a potential source of insecurity for Thor, and a more meaningful point of dispute between the two as to what should happen once they succeeded in defeating Hela.

Just as an aside, I also find it pretty laughable that all of Asgard's remaining populace can fit inside a clearly not that large ship. There seem to have been more people in the coliseum in Sakaar.

### The Good Bits

There are a few things I did like about the film, all of them relating to Thor's development. I'll also say that while most of the humor fell flat for me (I didn't laugh once) I was entertained by the shoutouts to Tony Stark. Why on earth he should happen to have a change of clothes in that particular quinjet, and why they should still be there after what was established as two years, well, we'll handwave that. (But seriously, that whole ship should have either been repaired and put into service or scrapped for parts in that society). Also, why are there glasses? Doesn't Tony only wear sunglasses? But anyway, the idea that Tony has a Patrick Nagel shirt and the comments about how he wears his pants tight amused me –- especially because I so hate the trope of people automatically being able to fit into one another's clothes.

The main arc of the movie is that Thor steps into his role of king (and god) at last. In that sense this completes the arc begun in the first movie which stalled in the second. What jumped out at me regarding Thor coming into his powers is that this was nearly identical to what Joss Whedon [wrote for Wonder Woman](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11255745/chapters/25174614) in his unproduced script over a decade ago. Only in Diana's case her mother was not dead when she appeared to her in her moment of need. So Thor's vision of his father in a moment of extremis seemed quite familiar.

What also seemed curiously familiar is that it echoed the [coming of age story](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11648145) in Spiderman when he's told by Tony that he doesn't deserve the suit if he's nothing without it (which itself echoed Thor's loss of Mjolnir in the first Thor film). However the reveal of Thor not really needing the hammer to embody his powers at the end is undercut by the fact that we've already seen it happen in the arena earlier in the film. You'd think this would be an unexpected big reveal, but no, it's just thrown away midway through the film for no good reason.

At the same time, elements of Thor's initial character remain. His whole conversation with Banner, for example, both as the Hulk and as Bruce is completely insincere. He'll say whatever he needs to as long as he can get what he wants. In this it's like he's pre-Iron Man Tony. While it's hardly endearing, I did like that it was shown. However else he's grown, Thor's instincts are still the same. I did also like the moment when he relates the snake story to Bruce and Valkyrie. That, and Loki's smile, was more instructive than almost anything else about what kind of childhood they shared, as well as the fact that Thor's vanity can be overcome by his sense of humor. 

Unfortunately Thor's exchanges with Hulk don't come to much. In fact that whole scene was so broadly written I actually expected to have several minutes of fart jokes in the film. Maybe there were and they simply got cut for time.

The one character who we finally did get to see do more was Heimdall and that's quite welcome. But other than sporting a great new look and rounding people up for Thor and Loki to save, it's not like we actually learn anything more about him. We do get more insight into his abilities when he communicates telepathically with Thor, but that's about it.

Speaking of looks, Hela's costume and Thor's new shorn look both suit them. That Thor is blinded like his father at movie's end should be foreboding, but I'm guessing it was included largely as a symbolic statement of Thor's coming into his own as leader and adult.

That the final battle scenes were, to me, some of the best parts of the film, says a lot about the rest of it since it was mostly the usual CGI smashfest. Really, the more time I have to think about the film the more annoyed I get about it. Whether or not we'll have a Thor 4, I can't imagine given the direction the films are headed in, but I think it's a shame that this is the way they'll end if that's the case.


End file.
